


Enola, Eritne, Etercsid

by qwertynerd97 (Daffidill23)



Category: Enola Holmes (2020)
Genre: Gen, Genderfluid Character, Genderfluid Enola, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Enola, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26642446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daffidill23/pseuds/qwertynerd97
Summary: Enola picks up and discards names, clothes, and societal roles as easily as breathing.  Sherlock may be the master of deductive reasoning, but the youngest Holmes is the best at fitting in, even inside their own skin.
Relationships: Enola Holmes & Viscount "Tewky" Tewksbury
Comments: 21
Kudos: 346





	Enola, Eritne, Etercsid

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Equivalence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/206588) by [introductory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/introductory/pseuds/introductory). 



> I know that part of the conflict of the story is that Enola does things that a girl is not supposed to do and that one of the ‘lessons’ is female empowerment and advocacy (although I could murder whoever wrote that corset line, a corset was A Very Practical Garment, not a tool of oppression), but a) I did a lot of things a girl was not supposed to do growing up despite not being (fully) a girl and b) enbies can still do female empowerment and advocacy.

i

Viscount Tewksbury, Marquess of Basilwether says “Enola Holmes” and without a moment of hesitation, you tell him to forget that name.

ii

Enola Holmes is widely regarded as a well-spoken young lady, and with brothers like the promising young bureaucrat Mycroft and the brilliant detective Sherlock, one could hardly expect anything different. Perhaps she is a bit more forthright than is generally accepted at society galas, but that is often attributed to her notorious friendship with the young Lord Tewksbury. Her dresses are always the finest silks and the latest fashions, and she is always keen to hear whatever gossip may be floating around at any time of year. 

And if the parties that she attends are often frequented by oddly timed discoveries or sounds of brawling in hidden the annex just off the side gallery, well surely that has nothing to do with the charming Miss Enola. Everyone knows that high-class ladies do not fight, and Enola is the very picture of a high-class lady. (And if she occasionally returns to the party with her hairdo slightly askew, well, it is often overlooked by whatever fortuitous discovery has been made.)

_ Enola, written backwards, spells out alone. It’s funny, how easy it becomes to be alone in a crowd, moving through them untouched and learning exactly the pieces that are needed to pull the puzzle together. Alone is not always a bad thing - people are far more likely to share secrets if they think no one else is listening. _

iii

When you’ve decided that your life’s purpose is finding the lost, you need to know how to fit in. The easiest way to do that is to show everyone exactly what they are expecting - no more, and certainly no less. You picked up the trick quickly; your brother uses elaborate disguises to find clues, but you have rarely needed to do so. Why invent a whole new disguise when simply hiding and showing various aspects of yourself will do just as well?

iv

Eritne Holmes is much less well known than his older brothers, though plenty of people comment on the resemblance when they meet him. He fits in flawlessly with the middle class, and he finds all the best stories sitting on back stoops and in train carriages. He is not quite anonymous; most of the porters around the city know him, if only by how well he tips, and Sherlock’s Baker Street Irregulars often pass him messages, knowing he will get them to the detective, eventually.

And if everyone seems to have an anecdote or two of seeing Eritne somewhere odd, well, boys will be boys after all. Who knows what mischief they will get up to, and its all in good fun anyway. No one really thinks that much of it, not enough to bother putting a name to the boy when they are relaying the story, later, about how they saw someone slip off behind the docks and make a running jump onto a boat that was already leaving. (And if the name Eritne never really gets around, well, that makes it that much easier to get into places where he’s not supposed to be)

_ Eritne, written backwards, spells out entire. People see a well-dressed young boy doing odd things, and they fill in the entire story themself: nothing special, just another merchant’s son entertaining himself. Entire isn’t a puzzle to be solved - its a framework around which other people build explanations. _

v

You’ve had moments, here and there, where the word games that you used to play with your mother turned to ash in your mouth. It was never for long, though, and it could always be fixed by finding someone on the street and paying them five pounds to swap clothes with you. You didn’t bother to name it for the longest time; after all, you were already odd, so why worry about yet another area where you were different from everyone else?

vi

Etercsid Holmes is the kind of person everyone strives to ignore; no one would ever think to associate them with the high-class Holmes brothers, even if someone did bother to learn their name. They are just another urchin on the streets, of little consequence to anyone important. Perhaps someone will stop to trade a coin for one of their papers, or send them off to fetch something of little consequence just to get them out of the way, but no one will ever look too closely at them.

And if no one notices them when they lean up against the shadowy corner of an alleyway, or if they fade into the background, well, that’s just the nature of the city. The well-to-do certainly can’t be bothered to keep track of every unkempt ragamuffin they encounter, and may very well look the same as the next. (If Etercsid has an uncanny knack for turning up, over and over again, in the path of someone they need more information from, then it’s just as well that no one pays attention to them.)

_ Etercsid, written backwards, spells out discrete. Fading into the background, no more important than a piece of trash or furniture, is the perfect disguise. Discrete isn’t hiding - it’s simply having ears and words that are too unin=mportant to be worth considering. _

vii

Viscount Tewksbury, Marquess of Basilwether says “Enola Holmes” and without a moment of hesitation, you tell him to forget that name. It takes him, and you, some time to figure out why, but once you know who you are, he never again uses the incorrect name for you.

The best thing about ciphers is that they can have more than one meaning, if you know how to read them.

**Author's Note:**

> I started figuring out that I was queer right about the same time that I fell into the BBC Sherlock fandom. [Introductory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/introductory/pseuds/introductory)’s [Equivalence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/206588) was instrumental in that realization; before I read it I had never even heard of the word genderfluid. (I definitely read it way more times than was sane just because it resonated with me so well - for a long time I had it saved in notes in my iPod Touch so I could re-read it offline whenever I wanted) And so seeing something similar in the new Enola Holmes movie made me feel like I had come full circle. (Yes I know the writers probably didn’t intend for Enola to be trans but you know what? My canon now)


End file.
